One of the key tenets of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology is its global application, digitally kicking down borders between countries and people and allowing value and data to be sent anywhere.

Being global is also one of the main focuses for Liven and our digital currency for food, LivenCoin (LVN), being a central point in our abstract and project goal — to be the world’s first global food economy.

For now, Liven’s network stretches across over 1,000 restaurants in Australia’s two largest capital cities, with over 200,000 users enjoying up to 25% of their bill back as rewards every time they dine out.

But this is just a drop in the pond when it comes to the $US3.5 trillion hospitality market, and for Liven’s platform to truly drive everyday adoption of cryptocurrency, we have to give as many people access to it as possible.

Our big hairy audacious goal is to be in over 20 different countries by the year 2020, and we’re kicking that off by immediately expanding into London following our ICO’s completion in July. Next on our list is San Francisco, New York, Austin and Chicago, and after those cities are feeling the Liven love, we’ll look towards opportunities in SE Asia, New Zealand, Japan, and South Korea.

Liven's plan for world domination.

Many of these cities and regions have been chosen not only for their cultural and market similarities to Australia, but also for the size of their addressable hospitality markets. New York City isn’t famous for its food for no reason!

Right now, Liven’s internal network currency exists as LivenCash, a virtual currency with value ONLY within the Liven network, pegged one-to-one to the value of the Australian dollar.

Turning our virtual currency into a cryptocurrency unlocks global potential for both Liven as a company, our users, and our merchants.

For us, it lets us launch our platform into other markets with more ease, allowing us to forego some of the tricky legislative and regulatory hoops needed to issue fiat-backed virtual currencies, putting part of the job of exchanging to fiat in the hands of our users.

For our users, it gives them a food currency that is both seamlessly usable within their own country and other Liven-supported countries. Buy a burger at 8Bit in Melbourne, then fly yourself to London and buy a Yorkshire pudding (or some other pub meal) with the same currency, no exchanging or withdrawal required.

And for Liven’s international merchant partners, they will be able to easily expand with us, bolstered by a seamlessly integrated payment gateway that lets them accept payments in either fiat or crypto.

Embracing the world of cryptocurrency will let Liven scale its business operations more smoothly and more rapidly than what would have been possible tied to traditional currencies, and further incentivises our users to transact at our partnered merchants, which keeps our network thriving and growing.

Read more about how The LivenPay project is building a stable cryptocurrency for the real world, and making the capabilities and benefits of blockchain technology accessible for brick and mortar businesses and everyday consumers in this announcement.